Suspicion

Every police officer in the badly lit ware house found themselves panting, after the rather out of control argument that they had just had. Detective Andrew Lance had finally managed to get the twenty police officers present to calm down. Yet each still gave the other wary glances filled with anger. Detective Lance who was in charge of the mission did not know what to do. He anxiously rubbed his hand on his balding head. He had a habit of doing so when put in tense situations. His green eyes searched the perimeter to look at his team. Every single one of them looked depressed, each looking at the other with suspicion. He knew that he had to give them courage and hope, even though one of them was apparently a mole.

“Everybody listen up!” He barked. “Clearly GEM is trying to mess with our minds. I know for a fact that no one in this team is capable of such a thing and letting our entire force down.”

Every single police officer looked at him as if he was insane. Had he not heard what the man over the intercom had said? Every man and woman present here is going to die in the next thirty minutes, it was twenty now. They could tell by the metallic device that was placed in front of them with a countdown indication at the top. However, the man had also said that one of their force member was helping the terrorist organisation called GEM. It all made sense to them now, why every single mission that they went on; to take GEM down. GEM however always seemed to be two steps ahead of them.

Detective Lance saw the way how his team was looking at him; as if he was mental. He had been working with the same force for the past year and a half. He knew the strengths and the weaknesses of each officer as an individual. But if there was one thing that they all shared in common, it was that, all they needed was a little push to motivate them, so he was not going to give up.

“Look at yourselves” he continued “We have been through thick and thin together and now you’re all just going to give up?” he paused, letting what he had just told them to sink in. Andrew Lance had always been quite good at delivering motivational speeches.

“Let me tell you something, that door that we entered through is tightly shut. If that bomb explodes we all die. So think about it, do you really think that there is a mole amongst us?” He glanced around and mentally celebrated as he saw realisation dawn upon the officers in their blue uniform.

“Now, we came in here and found out the hostage situation we had been informed about was a hoax. We came in here to save people but now we need to save ourselves.” Voices of agreement rose in the air.

When it had quietened down Hailey, one of the officers spoke. “What do we do now, sir?”

“Natasha, Jason and Mark used to be a part of the bomb diffusing unit. Am I right?” Andrew paused, waiting for confirmation. After he had gotten it he asked whether they have the equipment needed for disabling a bomb with them. As it is, it was not a lot.

“Yes we do, sir” came the short reply from Mark.

“Good then let’s get to work” he commanded. There were now fifteen minutes left on the timer. Though the hopes of the team had risen thanks to detective Lance. Every single officer could not help but think; what would happen if it did not work. They found themselves thinking about their families. Andrew found himself doing the same, he was happy that Tessa, his wife had fallen sick and hence was not part of this mission. She too was an officer part of their team. His thoughts were interrupted by the slight cheer from the rest of the officers, the three officers had finally gotten the device open.

But now the air was thick with tension as they waited for the right wire to be cut. There were only five minutes on the timer now and these were decreasing fast. After the three discussed for a while, Natasha removed a small pair of scissors from her equipment belt and placed it next to the red wire.

Beads of sweat had formed on every officers’ forehead. Their hearts’ raced at a thousand miles per hour and finally they heard the small snip. The timer froze. A sudden loud cheer erupted from the whole team. Each officer wore a huge grin. Amidst this celebration Andrew’s phone began to ring, he looked at the caller’s ID and saw it was Tessa, his wife. He stepped away from the noisy crowd whilst putting the phone next to his ear but he could barely hear a thing.

“Hello? Tessa? I’ll call you back in a while” he briefly said into the phone. He did not end the call, though as he was still trying to see if he could hear any sort of reply. The cheers at the back had also somewhat died down. What he heard from her instead, made his blood run cold.

“How are they still alive? GEM said that they would get rid of all of them” Tessa remarked thinking Andrew had ended the call, she seemed to be talking to someone else who was with her. It all made sense to him now. She was the reason that GEM seemed to always be two steps ahead of them, Tessa was the mole.